Left: Aella, 2023.
Right: noemamag, 2025.

I am against any sort of essentializing or fetishizing, but what we call “nature” (what Aella is describing) is universal, an expression of cosmic laws - thermodynamics, vividly articulated. A CVS or a public school are to an equal extent, except that they tend to conceal and displace the pressure points where they reflect those laws.

Natural systems and institutional systems are both often cruel, but when displaced or concealed, we enter into a form of “idiot cruelty” you don’t see in nature.

I think some standards can be held up against nature and “kept honest” to reach a happy middle - but this is a much more intense process than people give credit. Human organisms require submission of the agency of many different organisms to function. This is a deep rabbit hole that makes the nature/human distinction meaningless IMO.

Check the section in this essay titled “What Does It Feel Like to Be a Pancreas”:

I am against any sort of essentializing or fetishizing, but what we call “nature” (what Aella is describing) is universal, an expression of cosmic laws - thermodynamics, vividly articulated. A CVS or a public school are to an equal extent, except that they tend to conceal and displace the pressure points where they reflect those laws.

Natural systems and institutional systems are both often cruel, but when displaced or concealed, we enter into a form of “idiot cruelty” you don’t see in nature.

I think some standards can be held up against nature and “kept honest” to reach a happy middle - but this is a much more intense process than people give credit. Human organisms require submission of the agency of many different organisms to function. This is a deep rabbit hole that makes the nature/human distinction meaningless IMO.

Check the section in this essay titled “What Does It Feel Like to Be a Pancreas”: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02688/full